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Monday, January 28, 2013

Baked Blueberry Oatmeal Cups

I have a 16 1/2-year old daughter, who, in spite of her fantastic intentions of going to bed at a reasonable time so she can get up at a reasonable time, is usually running out the door at mach 2 in order to make it to school. This often translates to: not eating breakfast. We needed something she could pick up and walk out the door with, without having to slow down a whole lot.

I've run across recipes for baked oatmeal in my travels around Pinterest and decided we'd give it a try. When baked in muffin tins it definitely looked like to-go food. I thought this recipe by I Heart Eating seemed fairly straight forward--without excess sugar, or vegan ingredients that I don't use--and was a good place to start. I changed the mix-ins a bit to accommodate what I had on-hand, and they turned out perfect for what we were looking for. They were just sweet enough, had a dense, muffin-like texture, and the frozen blueberries I added were fantastic. And, most important, my daughter gave them a thumbs-up. Score.

A great thing about these grab-and-go oatmeal cups (something I didn't realize until I was mixing them up) is they can easily be gluten free! (Make sure to use gluten-free oats.) My brother-in-law had to go gluten-free several months ago, so now I'm always looking for recipes to help my sister adjust her way of cooking (the transition has been a bit traumatic for both of them).

Another great thing about these oatmeal cups is the nutritional information! Sometimes I figure out the nutritional information and include it with the recipes I post, and sometimes I don't. For example, you might notice that not many (if any) of the desserts, treats, or other delicious things on this blog have the nutrition information. There are some things I just don't want to know. But these were a pleasant surprise, especially the Weight Watcher's Plus Points, which came in at 3 points per oatmeal cup if you make 12. If you have a jumbo muffin pan (which I do!), and you make 8 jumbo muffins, they are 5 points each--still a great deal! (You could also eat 1 1/2 standard-size oatmeal cups for the same 5 points.) The rest of the nutrition info is at the end of the recipe, so keep reading. Or scroll down to skip my blabber. Either way.

Assembly is pretty standard: mix the dry together; mix the wet together; mix the wet and the dry together; scoop into muffin tin. The scoop-into-muffin-tin part proved to be a bit tricky. Here's why: Because there isn't any flour to soak up the liquid ingredients and the oatmeal needs time to soak up the liquid ingredients, as you scoop out the mixture, you find yourself left with a puddle in the bottom of the bowl. Since the idea is to divide the mixture (liquid included) evenly between the muffin tin cavities, I found if I stirred it up before each scoop I was able to get it pretty evenly distributed. I did use a spoon to add a bit of the puddle to my first couple of scoops because they were noticeably dryer than the rest.

Another issue I had, and I have this same problem when making chocolate chip cookies, is that my last two scoops were very light on the blueberries. I tossed a few extra blueberries into the bowl, stirred them around, and we were good to go.

You can mix these up, fill your muffin tin, and bake them right away, or you can refrigerate them and bake them in the morning. They make your house smell absolutely divine, so this would be a very nice way to wake up in the morning. For me, I baked them at night, let them cool, and put them in a covered container in the fridge, because baking them in the morning would necessitate me getting out of bed early enough to put them in the oven in order for my daughter to be able to have one for breakfast...and that's just too. darn. early.

2. In a medium bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients, the banana and blueberries, and mix well. In a separate medium bowl, combine all of the wet ingredients, and mix well. Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture, and gently mix until well combined.

3. Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 prepared muffin cavities and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until set and firm to the press of a finger. Cool completely before storing in the refrigerator (the cupcake papers will also come off more cleanly if they are cooled all the way).